"Effective Communication Techniques: When you're in the heat of a fight, do you have a tendency to either explode and say things that you don't mean or withdraw in anger and become silent? If you're nodding your head, this is a very common, common experience where people will choose these sort of communication blocking techniques, not on purpose. It's just more of a reaction."

"Conflict Resolution Techniques: 'It might feel awkward at first to write it all down, how you're feeling, but it can be so effective so that once you approach the person, you've already written out what you're upset about. You are super clear about what need in you has gone unmet.'"

"Therapeutic Communication Techniques: 'You know that asking for what I want is challenging for me, and I would really appreciate your patience and compassion while I work to get better at it. So what we're doing there is we are inviting our person in to our process, to be a part of our solution instead of a part of the problem.'"

"Building Self Esteem Through Healthy Relationships: '… your side of the street is learning how to identify what it is that you want, or why it is that your feelings are hurt, or what need is going unmet. And then to write that down if you have difficulty in the moment talking, and creating space with that script that I gave you to be able to read it to your person. And that is a win, however they respond, right? You just creating that boundary. You just sharing that truth is a win right there. And that does wonders for your self esteem, right? You can start to count on yourself.'"

"Barriers in Communication: What you can do instead is learn to listen with the intention of actually understanding, not gathering evidence to make the other person wrong or to make that case."

"Effective Communication in Relationships: 'The more we normalize problem solving, the less we find ourselves in this sort of reaching this stalemate because when we're in the conflict, but what we really want is to win, We can't have both of those things. We can't be loving and want to resolve it, but also want to like crush our opponent.'"

"Healthy Communication in Relationships: So we're going from debating where there's a winner and a loser to actually discussing where both people, hopefully, the intention, the desire is to understand, to come to a deeper understanding of what the other person is experiencing."

"Effective Communication in Relationships: 'Hey, I'm upset right now. My first instinct is to ignore you and give you the silent treatment. I want to ignore the entire situation, but I want us to effectively problem solve more than I want to do that. So can you please give me a few minutes or insert whatever your desired amount of time is to cool off and think about how I feel? Then let's come back together and talk it out because I love you and I don't wanna fight or ignore you to make a point.'"

"Understanding Defensive Behavior in Relationships: If you notice a pattern of defensiveness when you're in conflict, you've got to work to understand your own reactions and not use blaming or shaming as a tool to win an argument."

"Healthy Conflict Resolution: 'Do we have the capacity to choose to be loving over being right in the moment? Because the reality is from a therapeutic standpoint, let's say, you can't prioritize both of those things.'"